Saddam and his sort

Toppling Saddam Hussein would be to strike three birds with one stone

IN THE litany of anti-American criticism, one of the main charges is that the arrogant superpower ignores multilateral laws and procedures and goes its own unilateral way. A prime example is said to be its headstrong desire for a “regime change” in Iraq, a plan virtually all its allies except Britain currently oppose. It must just be a Bush family feud, say some, given the elder Bush's failure to complete the Gulf war in 1991. Or a macho disregard for others' views, led by Republican hawks. Yet Iraq is actually the best example there is of America following multilateral procedures, which an arrogant unilateralist called Saddam Hussein proceeded to flout. The question, then, is what you do when international deals and procedure are broken. Sit back and pretend it hasn't happened?

That, alas, has been the multilateralist approach. During the 1980s, Saddam sought to develop nuclear weapons (along with biological and chemical ones) despite having sworn not to do so by signing the NPT. He used chemical weapons during his long war against Iran, and then on his own people in Kurdish areas. In 1991, after Saddam had invaded Kuwait and then been defeated in the Gulf war, the United Nations voted in its Resolution 687, which required Iraq to disclose, destroy and abandon all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and associated research, as well as long-range missiles. It laid down a timetable for inspection and removal which was originally envisaged to last one year, during which economic sanctions were imposed as an enforcement mechanism. The sanctions permitted some exports of oil in return for imports of food and medicine.

Yet Iraq did everything it could to thwart and evade such disarmament, stringing the process out for seven years before eventually kicking the UN inspectors out altogether. Although during that time much progress was made in detecting and destroying weapons materials, Iraq was also shown to have lied at every stage—for example, about having ever produced a deadly nerve agent called VX, a denial it then replaced with a claim it had made only 200 litres, until the UN inspectors proved it had made at least 3,900 litres. So even what was discovered and admitted to cannot be considered definitive.

In the four years since the inspectors last visited Baghdad, four things have happened. First, Iraq rejected a much diluted new inspection regime, which offered a suspension of sanctions if it had been accepted. Second, Iraq succeeded in spreading the story that the sanctions have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children—which they have, but the sanctions would have been gone long ago if Saddam had co-operated with the UN. Third, in 2001 Russia blocked a proposal to target the sanctions more specifically at particular imports while allowing more exports of oil. Fourth, while the UN's failed policy continued to be “enforced” by sanctions and by two “no-fly” zones policed by American and British aircraft in northern and southern Iraq, Saddam has been free to resume his weapons programmes, funded by oil and other exports channelled through a thriving black market.

At every stage, the multilateral approach has failed, blocked by Iraq or by permanent members of the UN Security Council, chiefly France and Russia. Those countries, China and others have been circumventing the sanctions. Recently Russia has changed its ways, to a degree, and has at last agreed to a modified (so-called “smart”) sanctions regime. But what can be done now? All the options are terrible:

1) Continue with containment, ie, the status quo, allowing Iraq to blame America (to which the UN sanctions are ascribed) for children's deaths while rebuilding its weapons programme.

2) Demand that Iraq submit to a new inspections regime.

3) Give up altogether and wait till Saddam does something aggressive or barbaric that he can be punished for. This would make him a hero to those Arabs who like the thought of him seeing off the West.

4) Try to get a UN consensus to support an American-led invasion, intended to depose Saddam and to bring in a new regime willing to abide by Iraq's past international commitments.

5) Just invade, hoping that success will convince others that it was a good idea.

The apparent multilateral consensus is for either the second of these options or the fourth, though agreement is not universal even on those measures. And the question still arises: what do you do if either measure is (in effect) voted down or, in the case of a new inspections agreement, fails? Thus, the limit to a purely multilateral approach, under the ambit of the 1945 UN Charter, is exposed. Beyond economic sanctions, which have already failed or been scuppered by UN members, there is no enforcement mechanism except for American leadership. And that is what is likely to happen. There will be a multilateral process along the lines of option two. It will fail. And then America will invade.

Practical matters

It will be right to do so. Without an enforcement mechanism as a last resort, treaties and conventions designed to control the spread of the ghastliest weapons will ultimately collapse. There has to be a military sanction, albeit used extremely reluctantly. The trouble is that with these sorts of weapons, that sanction cannot wait until a nuclear or biological attack has taken place. It has to be applied pre-emptively.

But when? America has been saying at least since 1997 that it wants Saddam's regime to go. The case for acting soon is that it has already been left so long that America's credibility is damaged, and that the momentum gained by success in Afghanistan is there to be exploited. The case against is that with Israel and Palestine locked in violent conflict, no Arab country will support an invasion as they did the Gulf war in 1991. Saddam may be helping to stir up that conflict, and he may have links with the al-Qaeda terrorists, but little evidence of either has been disclosed.

In practice, the timing will be determined pragmatically. America will attack once the multilateral process has been under way for a while and has failed, and at a time that looks propitious. That choice is unlikely to be made while the Israeli-Palestinian war remains hot. Unless America has some clear evidence up its sleeve, it would be best advised to keep the case for invasion separate from the pursuit of al-Qaeda: the need to enforce the world's controls on weapons of mass destruction would make it strong even had September 11th never happened. The link to terrorism is a distraction.

Contrary to what some gung-ho armchair strategists say in America, an invasion would carry big risks. Those are not mainly of opposition by allies, though militarily the invasion would be a lot easier with logistical help from at least Kuwait and Turkey. The risks are that there could be large numbers of civilian Iraqi casualties if (probably when) Saddam uses them as shields, and that he might use whatever chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons he possesses. In either event the war could become very costly, including in American lives, and Saddam could seek to achieve a stalemate. Since failure looks unthinkable for the Bush administration, it would surely fight on. But the risk is then of Iraq becoming a new Vietnam, or Korea.

There are, though, big strategic gains to be had from a successful invasion, which are likely in the end to make the effort irresistible. First, there is the potential effect on would-be weapons proliferators all around the globe of a signal that international norms will ultimately be enforced. Both Iran and North Korea, the others named as in “the axis of evil”, have already been showing signs of greater willingness to talk. Syria, Libya, Sudan, Egypt and others among the “at least 25” countries said by Bill Clinton's defence secretary, William Cohen, to possess or be trying to get hold of such weapons would also think at least twice.

Second, depending on what regime replaces Saddam's, a pacified Iraq could help tilt the balance inside its neighbour, Iran, between reformists favouring a friendlier relationship with the West and more democracy, and the anti-American, generally clerical, hardliners. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, America supplied Iraq with some weapons in order to prevent Iran from dominating the region, a move that has yet to be forgotten, let alone forgiven. If Iraq, Russia and Pakistan all become more stable and less hostile, many justified Iranian worries will evaporate—after a period, to be sure, of fierce condemnation of American interference.

Third, a pacified, disarmed Iraq, under a new government, would provide the chance for a new start in America's dealings with the rest of the Arab world. It badly needs one. Thanks to unholy but necessary trade-offs made in past decades it is not only tarred with the brush of supplying Israel with money and arms but also with doing the same for a repressive regime in Egypt, as well as offering support to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Democracy exists nowhere, but economic failure and popular disenchantment exist almost everywhere.

This is the swamp in which fundamentalist or messianic terrorism has been able to breed, directed first at local regimes (especially Egypt's) but then, during the 1990s and on September 11th, at America. Somehow, the swamp has to be disinfected, even if it cannot be drained altogether. The first step in doing so will be the removal of Saddam Hussein. But that will be only the beginning of a long journey.